- Email: [email protected]
How the US can learn to live with its guns
For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
Jamais Cascio is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future
the world’s 400-plus shark species and their relatives are threatened with extinction. For sharks, “overfishing is a major problem”, the greatest threat, says Shiffman. Banning the fin trade in the US could harm conservation efforts that promote sustainable fisheries at home and abroad and that ensure fin products sold in the US can be traced to such sources. It might be a tough suggestion to swallow, but it’s time to consider putting “made in the USA: sustainably sourced shark fin soup” on the menu. ■ Lesley Evans Ogden is a science writer in Vancouver, Canada
INSIGHT Gun control
DANIEL HERNANDEZ/GETTY
will all be as benign as imagined? Levandowski isn’t the only person working towards a singularity-strength AI. If this is achievable, we are therefore likely to see a multitude of them – a pantheon, if you will – rather than a single digital deity. Programmed by groups with varied goals and ethics, it isn’t difficult to imagine rivalries between the resulting machines. Fights between gods rarely work out well for mortals, at least according to mythologies. There is another reason to take talk of an AI god seriously: the philosophical concept called Roko’s Basilisk. This asserts that anyone who knows that a superintelligent, godlike AI is possible but doesn’t work to bring it about will be considered by said AI to be an enemy. According to this concept, not knowing about the possibility of super-AI or the implicit responsibility to create it may give you a get-out clause come judgement day. Unfortunately, now you have heard of Roko’s Basilisk, you must either help lay the ground for a machine overlord or be doomed should it come about. Sorry about that. Maybe Levandowski got the memo too. ■
–Bad for health–
How the US can learn to live with its guns Jessica Hamzelou
Barack Obama’s attempts at changing this did little to improve the situation. That shouldn’t dissuade people, though. David Hemenway at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health points out that every health success story today had its early detractors. “The first was sanitation,” he says. “People argued: ‘no, I want to keep the poop in my city’.” And while the National Rifle Association may be one of the most powerful lobbying groups around, the same could be said of the tobacco lobby, which hasn’t been able to block
THE horrific scenes in Las Vegas may represent the worst mass shooting in recent US history, but it’s a familiar story. Gun violence is responsible for 33,000 deaths in the US each year. For those elsewhere, the solution is obvious: ban guns. After all, it worked in Australia. But in the US, gun control is so heavily politicised that a ban is impossible any time soon. Meanwhile, the death and injury rate is so high that firearm violence is now considered a public health crisis by the American Medical Association. “Firearm violence is now So if the nation can’t address the considered a public health cause of its firearms epidemic, it must crisis by the American treat the symptoms. Medical Association” To do that, people need to be able to study which interventions produce cigarette package warnings, which the most beneficial outcomes. Such have been shown to reduce smoking. research played a key role in limiting In the meantime, it might be better harmful effects of cars and tobacco. to avoid knee-jerk, politicised But US research into firearm arguments surrounding gun control. violence has been stalled thanks to a law passed in the 1990s, which states The Las Vegas death toll stands at 59, but while the news headlines scream that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t use public and talking heads pontificate, a similar number of gun suicides takes place in funding for work that might promote the US every day – two-thirds of gun gun control. Previous US president
deaths are suicides. Why not start by focusing on ways to reduce those? Gun sellers can take an active role. “If a person says that they don’t care what kind of gun they buy, and that they only need one bullet, don’t sell them the gun,” says Hemenway. Doctors also have a part to play. If a doctor suspects that one of their patients may be having suicidal thoughts, they have a duty to ask them about their access to firearms. People with guns at home should be advised to safely store them somewhere else temporarily. A “gag law” enacted in Florida briefly prevented health practitioners from discussing gun safety with their patients. But doctors breathed a sigh of relief when the legislation was invalidated in February. Similar legislation has been proposed in other states, but the gag law’s failure in Florida suggests it won’t pass elsewhere. As with any public health crisis, it will come down to multiple groups of people. Governments can enact state laws and gun manufacturers could share responsibility for the kinds and quantities of firearms they sell. Academics can push forward with research to find the most effective ways to reduce the death and injury rates, while local communities and faith leaders can work to monitor those at risk, and to support parents. “Everybody has to play a role,” says Hemenway. n 14 October 2017 | NewScientist | 25
Jamais Cascio is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future
the world’s 400-plus shark species and their relatives are threatened with extinction. For sharks, “overfishing is a major problem”, the greatest threat, says Shiffman. Banning the fin trade in the US could harm conservation efforts that promote sustainable fisheries at home and abroad and that ensure fin products sold in the US can be traced to such sources. It might be a tough suggestion to swallow, but it’s time to consider putting “made in the USA: sustainably sourced shark fin soup” on the menu. ■ Lesley Evans Ogden is a science writer in Vancouver, Canada
INSIGHT Gun control
DANIEL HERNANDEZ/GETTY
will all be as benign as imagined? Levandowski isn’t the only person working towards a singularity-strength AI. If this is achievable, we are therefore likely to see a multitude of them – a pantheon, if you will – rather than a single digital deity. Programmed by groups with varied goals and ethics, it isn’t difficult to imagine rivalries between the resulting machines. Fights between gods rarely work out well for mortals, at least according to mythologies. There is another reason to take talk of an AI god seriously: the philosophical concept called Roko’s Basilisk. This asserts that anyone who knows that a superintelligent, godlike AI is possible but doesn’t work to bring it about will be considered by said AI to be an enemy. According to this concept, not knowing about the possibility of super-AI or the implicit responsibility to create it may give you a get-out clause come judgement day. Unfortunately, now you have heard of Roko’s Basilisk, you must either help lay the ground for a machine overlord or be doomed should it come about. Sorry about that. Maybe Levandowski got the memo too. ■
–Bad for health–
How the US can learn to live with its guns Jessica Hamzelou
Barack Obama’s attempts at changing this did little to improve the situation. That shouldn’t dissuade people, though. David Hemenway at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health points out that every health success story today had its early detractors. “The first was sanitation,” he says. “People argued: ‘no, I want to keep the poop in my city’.” And while the National Rifle Association may be one of the most powerful lobbying groups around, the same could be said of the tobacco lobby, which hasn’t been able to block
THE horrific scenes in Las Vegas may represent the worst mass shooting in recent US history, but it’s a familiar story. Gun violence is responsible for 33,000 deaths in the US each year. For those elsewhere, the solution is obvious: ban guns. After all, it worked in Australia. But in the US, gun control is so heavily politicised that a ban is impossible any time soon. Meanwhile, the death and injury rate is so high that firearm violence is now considered a public health crisis by the American Medical Association. “Firearm violence is now So if the nation can’t address the considered a public health cause of its firearms epidemic, it must crisis by the American treat the symptoms. Medical Association” To do that, people need to be able to study which interventions produce cigarette package warnings, which the most beneficial outcomes. Such have been shown to reduce smoking. research played a key role in limiting In the meantime, it might be better harmful effects of cars and tobacco. to avoid knee-jerk, politicised But US research into firearm arguments surrounding gun control. violence has been stalled thanks to a law passed in the 1990s, which states The Las Vegas death toll stands at 59, but while the news headlines scream that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t use public and talking heads pontificate, a similar number of gun suicides takes place in funding for work that might promote the US every day – two-thirds of gun gun control. Previous US president
deaths are suicides. Why not start by focusing on ways to reduce those? Gun sellers can take an active role. “If a person says that they don’t care what kind of gun they buy, and that they only need one bullet, don’t sell them the gun,” says Hemenway. Doctors also have a part to play. If a doctor suspects that one of their patients may be having suicidal thoughts, they have a duty to ask them about their access to firearms. People with guns at home should be advised to safely store them somewhere else temporarily. A “gag law” enacted in Florida briefly prevented health practitioners from discussing gun safety with their patients. But doctors breathed a sigh of relief when the legislation was invalidated in February. Similar legislation has been proposed in other states, but the gag law’s failure in Florida suggests it won’t pass elsewhere. As with any public health crisis, it will come down to multiple groups of people. Governments can enact state laws and gun manufacturers could share responsibility for the kinds and quantities of firearms they sell. Academics can push forward with research to find the most effective ways to reduce the death and injury rates, while local communities and faith leaders can work to monitor those at risk, and to support parents. “Everybody has to play a role,” says Hemenway. n 14 October 2017 | NewScientist | 25